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19 July 2011 early edition/transcript/Part 19
Part 19 PAUL FARRELLY: I have a couple of questions that have still been left hanging in the air about Milly Dowler. First of all, I wanted to clarify one bit of curiosity. I was at The Observer before 2001, when I was elected, but it wasn't covered at that time so I can't speak for The Observer. One thing that I know has not changed is that there is no publicly issued directory of mobile phone numbers. From your evidence that there are ways of converting mobile numbers to addresses by legal means, including web search, the person would have had to put their number on the internet. Otherwise, if the private investigator had secured it from a mobile phone company or through the police, he would have to have a public interest defence for doing so. Can you remember whether you had a public interest defence if you were challenged? REBEKAH: Like I said, many people disagreed with the campaign, but I felt that Sarah's law, and the woeful Sex Offenders Act 1997 that needed to be changed to protect the public, I felt was absolutely in the public interest. However, on that particular case—and don't forget, I only remembered it when I was re-presented with it—I know at the time my use of private detectives was around Sarah's law. That was my own personal— Q512 FARRELLY: But was that particular suspected mobile, line 547 of the blue book held by the info commissioner, where your secretary Cheryl's extension 4406 is a contact point, was that a suspected paedophile? REBEKAH: I can only assume it was, but as this person has been named and interviewed extensively now by the media and has said, quite openly, that he is not guilty of any wrongdoing and that he cannot understand why any of us were looking at him at the time, then I have to accept that. I do not think that the inquiry led to publication about him, but at the time we used private detectives in order to track down the many convicted paedophiles that were living in the community. Q513 FARRELLY: So you would have had a public interest defence in that particular case. You feel that it was not just a question of employing Steve Whittamore on a no-questions-asked basis? RUPERT: No, absolutely not. I think, as you say, you were not at The Observer at the time, and you left in 2001? FARRELLY: It was 2001, for better or worse. REBEKAH: But The Observer had used private detectives before 2001. It was not a new practice at The Observer in 2001. In your time at The Observer, private detectives were used, as they were used across Fleet street, and I am sure that you, like I, thought they worked from legitimate means. Clearly, when we had "What price privacy?", when we had the Select Committee inquiry and, as Louise has mentioned, the subsequent conclusion of that, the governance around private detectives was found to be wanting, and the industry, on the back of this Committee's inquiry, changed their ways. Q514 FARRELLY: Let me move on to the link with Milly Dowler. After the arrest and conviction of Goodman and Mulcaire, two myths were being peddled, and News International was at the forefront of peddling both of them. One was that it was just a rogue reporter, and the second was that Mulcaire was not really active or doing this sort of stuff until 2005. You had gone by then, and the myth was not to make any link between the two activities—his activities and the sorts of activities that were going on under Motorman. The Milly Dowler case comprehensively demolished both of those myths, didn't it? REBEKAH: If you remember, at the time when Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire were arrested in 2006, it was the belief of News International on the basis that it was the belief of the police that they would be thoroughly investigating this. In fact, previous to the arrest of Glenn Mulcaire and Clive Goodman, they had been investigating this situation in order to make the arrest. I understand why you are using the language of myth, but for all of us then, that was the reality. We were told in the trial in 2007 that Glenn Mulcaire's pre-disclosure before sentencing stated categorically that he did not start accessing voicemails until 2004—it wasn't 2005; it was 2004. That is what he said. That is what he told the trial. After 2007, there were Committee hearings, News International conducted the internal investigation that you covered extensively in the previous session, and the police closed the inquiry. From my own knowledge, in 2006, because my own voicemail, as everyone knows now, was accessed by Glenn Mulcaire on a regular basis, I had the same knowledge that everyone else had. Whether or not you can say it is a myth now, clearly we have now seen evidence that that is not the case. But it wasn't a myth; it was what everyone believed at the time. Q515 FARRELLY: Thanks to a partial leak—a good description of the paper that was left in the safe in the office of Harbottle & Lewis—we have had an account through The Sunday Times in the last few days that there were a number of gatekeepers on news desks both in your time at the News of the World and under Andy Coulson. The names were Alex Marunchak, Greg Miskiw, Clive Goodman, Neville Thurlbeck, James Weatherup, and Ian Edmondson—if The Sunday Times is accurate—and yet we are still being asked to believe that you, as a hands-on editor, and Andy Coulson simply did not know what your news desk was up to. REBEKAH: I cannot comment on what others knew, when they knew it and how they knew it. I can only tell this Committee what I knew while I was editor of the News of the World and subsequently editor of The Sun, and as chief executive I can account for my actions in trying to get to the bottom of this story. In 2006, from my own personal point of view, I was the editor of The Sun. I had been approached by the police to explain the nature of access on my own voicemails and I reported that back to the company and was therefore ring-fenced from any of the subsequent investigations. I just remained editor of The Sun. When I became chief executive in 2009, that was when I started to pick up much more responsibility of how we acted in getting to the bottom of this story. Q516 FARRELLY: I will suspend my incredulity again. Can I just move on to Milly Dowler? After the Milly Dowler story, which was the straw that broke the camel's back finally, your company, acting on your behalf, I assume, was very quick to distance you from being anywhere on the premises at the time that particular story was run. It said, and it has been quoted in the newspapers, that you were on holiday at the time. Is that the case? REBEKAH: It is slightly irrelevant where I was. I was the editor at the time. If this happened, then it is appalling. I didn't know it was happening. Q517 FARRELLY: It is not irrelevant because they distanced you from it. They put out a statement or talked to the press. It has been reported that you were on holiday at the time. REBEKAH: There were no statements put out about me being away at the time. Q518 FARRELLY: If you do the clips, you will find that it is reported and sourced to the company. REBEKAH: Yes, but you said a statement. We didn't put out a statement. The actual fact was that I was away for the story that they are talking about, but I feel as editor that is irrelevant. I was the editor of the paper, and therefore, ultimately, it happened on my watch. Q519 FARRELLY: Who would have been editing the paper when you were away? Your deputy? REBEKAH: The deputy or the associate editor. Q520 FARRELLY: Who was the deputy? REBEKAH: I had a deputy, Andy Coulson, and an associate editor, Harry Scott. Q521 FARRELLY: So, Andy Coulson would have been editing it while you were away? REBEKAH: Presumably, but I don't absolutely know. Q522 FARRELLY: I don't want to take too long. You saw the exchanges over the e-mail—the sheaf of paper that was residing for a long time in the offices of Harbottle & Lewis that gives the lie to the evidence that we received previously about the results of a huge e-mail trawl after Colin Myler arrived. Clearly, that was still sitting there when you became the chief executive in 2009. It was all commissioned before your watch, but it was sitting there on your watch. James Murdoch said that he first learned about it in either April or May and then it was passed to the police in June. When did you first learn that that evidence was there? REBEKAH: Just before James Murdoch, and I then went to tell him what we had found. Q523 FARRELLY: Did Will Lewis report the find to you? REBEKAH: As you know we have this management and standards committee that we set up after the police reopened their investigation in January 2011. Obviously, it was our investigation that led to the opening of that inquiry—the information that we handed over to the police. We subsequently set up a management and standards committee in order to facilitate the police with any information they requested or anything that we could proactively find to help them. As part of that disclosure and as part of the references made to the internal investigation into Harbottle & Lewis, the police asked the management and standards committee about Harbottle & Lewis. We went off to look for evidence. We then found it. As I think James Murdoch said in his session, we took counsel about it and we handed it over to the police on 20 June. Q524 FARRELLY: This trawl did not just involve News of the World people because it was overseen by News International people—people who reported to you as chief executive. In particular, Jon Chapman. Can you remember what conversations you had with John Chapman after this evidence came to light? We heard from Rupert Murdoch that, to use his words, John Chapman sat on that file for years. REBEKAH: The original inquiry in 2007 was, I believe, instructed by Les Hinton— Q525 FARRELLY: Yes, we know the background. I am just asking you what happened when the evidence came to light through your committee. John Chapman is a News International legal director who reports to you. Can you remember what conversations you had with him? REBEKAH: Yes, I can. Obviously, we discussed it. As soon as it came to light—I was told about it at the end of April, I think—Mr Chapman was asked for his knowledge of it, where the file had been and why it had not come to light before. Q526 FARRELLY: What was his response to you? REBEKAH: His response to us at the time was that he was asked to do an investigation into the illegal interception of voicemail. He felt that the Harbottle & Lewis recommendation, which was the letter that you have— Q527 FARRELLY: A very misleading letter. REBEKAH: As our legal adviser, he felt that the letter from Harbottle & Lewis— Q528 FARRELLY: Got you off the hook? REBEKAH: No. He felt that it was an accurate review of the Harbottle & Lewis file. That is something, as you clearly have heard today, that neither James Murdoch nor I thought it was, on closer examination. Q529 FARRELLY: Did he just do that off his own bat? REBEKAH: Do what, sorry? Q530 FARRELLY: Get Harbottle & Lewis to issue a misleading letter, or a letter that may not have been misleading to them at the time, and to sit on evidence that gave a lie to what we were told. Did he just do that off his own bat? REBEKAH: Harbottle & Lewis is a very respected law firm. I am not sure that it is fair of you to accuse it of— Q531 FARRELLY: I am not. I am asking about Jon Chapman, who reported to you. REBEKAH: You asked if Jon Chapman— Q532 FARRELLY: Did he take the decision not to disclose anything any further? REBEKAH: You asked if Jon Chapman had asked Harbottle & Lewis— Q533 FARRELLY: No, I asked you what he said to you. REBEKAH: Yes, but you also asked whether Jon Chapman asked Harbottle & Lewis to write a misleading letter. My response to that question is that I think Harbottle & Lewis is a well-respected legal firm, and I am sure that that wouldn't be the case. Jon Chapman has been a respected lawyer at News International for many years, and I am sure that he would absolutely not have done that. However, in light of what we know now, when I and the management and standards committee at News International saw that file, we felt that it, from our perspective, put a new light on information that we had had in the past, and we handed it over to the police. Q534 FARRELLY: I didn't ask that question, but it would have been a good question to ask, so thank you. Why did Jon Chapman leave the employ of News International? REBEKAH: As you heard in the previous session, Jon Chapman wanted to leave. We felt that under the circumstances, that was the right course of action. Q535 FARRELLY: Because Jon Chapman has come out strongly as the fall guy from this session. He acted alone, did he? REBEKAH: I think that at the time, if you called Jon Chapman, who was a corporate lawyer, and Daniel Cloke, who was our head of HR, to this Committee, they would say that in their experience and knowledge, when they looked at the file, they felt that the Harbottle & Lewis letter was correct. Q536 FARRELLY: I have a couple of final questions. One thing that struck many people was the silence across Fleet street, apart from a few newspapers—The Guardian of course, The Independent and the FT, and then the New York Times—in the coverage of the affair. Can you remember calling any editors after The Guardian's story in July 2005 to discuss how they might or might not cover the story in order to downplay the coverage? REBEKAH: In 2005? Q537 FARRELLY: In 2009, after The Guardian broke the story. Do you remember calling around editors such as Paul Dacre to, in some way, encourage them not to give the story any play? REBEKAH: No. I don't remember calling him about it, but he and I would talk about industry matters on occasion. I only knew what I had read in The Guardian. Q538 FARRELLY: Finally, do you recall a conversation with Boris Johnson, during which he asked you what you wanted out of this, and your response was for Alan Rusbridger to go to down on his knees and beg for your forgiveness? Do you recall that conversation? REBEKAH: Absolutely not.